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Gooseberry and Pineapple Jam
4 quarts gooseberries I large pineapple I 1½ cups sugar to each 2 cups fruit Remove the stems and calyx ends of the gooseberries; pare the pineapple and remove the eyes, then chop or grate the flesh. Put the sugar into the saucepan with just enough water to melt it, - between one and two cups; as soon as it boils, add the fruit and let cook until thick, stirring often. Or cook the pineapple in the water about fifteen minutes, then add the gooseberries and sugar, and cook until thick. Strawberries may replace the gooseberries, but no water should be used.
A high-pectin jam that needs no commercial pectin — green gooseberries supply plenty of their own. The main work is prep, and the main judgment call is knowing when to stop cooking.
- The sugar ratio, read correctly"1½ cups sugar to each 2 cups fruit" is the governing instruction, not the 4 quarts and one pineapple, which are only a suggested scale. Measure the prepared fruit after topping, tailing and grating, then weigh or measure sugar against that.
- Quantities in modern termsFour quarts of whole gooseberries is roughly 5 to 6 lb; a large pineapple yields about 3 to 4 cups of grated flesh. Prepared, that is well over a gallon of fruit, with sugar at three-quarters of the fruit's volume — a very large batch by modern standards. Halving or quartering it gives a shallower pan and a faster, brighter set.
- Topping and tailing"Stems and calyx ends" means the little stalk at one end and the dried brown flower remnant at the other. Small scissors are quicker than a knife. Gooseberries do not need peeling and the skins soften completely in the boil.
- Which gooseberriesFirm, slightly underripe green fruit has the most pectin and acid and sets best. Fully ripe dessert gooseberries make a looser, sweeter jam; if that is what you have, expect to cook longer.
- Pineapple firstThe second method is the safer bet. Pineapple flesh is tough and benefits from the fifteen minutes of pre-cooking, while gooseberries collapse in a few minutes; added together, the berries cook far longer than they need to.
- Bromelain is not a problem hereRaw pineapple contains an enzyme that interferes with gelatine, but this is a pectin set and the fruit is boiled, which destroys the enzyme. No adjustment needed.
- Judging "until thick"Jam sets at about 220F at sea level, 8 degrees above the boiling point of water where you are. Failing a thermometer, use the cold-plate test: a spoonful on a chilled saucer should wrinkle when pushed after a minute in the fridge. Stir often near the end — this much sugar scorches quickly.
- Filling and keepingThe recipe gives no filling or sealing instructions at all. Current practice for a shelf-stable jam is hot fill into sterilised jars, new two-piece lids, and a boiling-water bath of about 10 minutes, adjusted for altitude. Otherwise refrigerate and use within a month.
- YieldThe full batch makes a great deal of jam — on the order of ten pints or more. The strawberry variation, made without water, is looser and softer-set because strawberries carry far less pectin than gooseberries.
Gooseberries were a fixture of American and British kitchen gardens well into the twentieth century, valued precisely because they were sour, firm and full of pectin — qualities that make dull eating and excellent preserves. Their near-disappearance from US markets is generally traced to federal and state restrictions imposed in the early 1900s, when Ribes species were found to host white pine blister rust and plantings were destroyed across much of the country; the bans were relaxed in some states only decades later. The pineapple here marks the other half of the story: an imported tropical fruit, pared and grated fresh, paired with something out of the back garden. The pairing is practical as much as fanciful — pineapple brings sweetness and perfume, the gooseberry brings the acid and pectin that make it set.